A 4-Phase Approach for Ongoing Website Success

If I could help the business world understand just one thing about Internet Marketing and more specifically websites, it would be that websites have to be continuously nurtured in order to continually thrive on the Internet.

Your website is not a set it and forget it type of thing. Well, I guess it could be, however it probably wouldn’t serve you very well for long — if at all.

Now regardless of the type of website you have, once it’s live, to ensure it’s continual value to both you and your target market, I highly recommend that you put it on a steady diet of what I call the “Website Success Cycle”.

Here’s how it works. In a nutshell the “Website Success Cycle” consists of 4-phases, “Drive”, “Convert”, “Analyze”, and “Tweak”. And essentially they get performed in a continuous loop throughout the entire life of your website. Let’s take a look at each phase.

Phase 1: Drive

Regardless of how much money or effort you put into your website, no traffic equals no value… for anybody. I mean how valuable can your website be if no one sees it? And since the whole point of having a site in the first place should be in one way, shape, or form to create value for both you and your target market, it’s critical that you leverage whatever marketing strategies and tactics that are at your disposal to drive traffic there.

Phase 2: Convert

So now you have all this traffic coming to your site… now what? Well you need a conversion strategy that leads those visitors down the path you want them to take — whatever that path may be.

For example, I recommend your conversion strategy at a minimum addresses first, turning each visitor into a qualified prospect… second, turning each prospect into a paying customer… and then third, turning each customer into a raving fan.

Phase 3: Analyze

As with any other of your marketing materials and campaigns, if your website’s not pulling its weight so to speak, change it — Time is money here. How do you know whether or not it’s pulling its weight? Well it all starts with having clear objectives of what you want your site to do for you. Then establishing metrics that you can regularly analyze to determine if your objectives are being met.

Phase 4: Tweak

Based on your findings in the previous phase, this phase is all about making the changes necessary to meet or exceed your objectives for your website. Whether those changes are ones to your site or what you do in any of the other phases, it’s all about improving your bottom line.

You always want to ask yourself here, what else can I do to take it to the next level?

So that’s the 4-phases in a nutshell. And in closing I’d like to leave you with this last little tidbit of advice if I may… the better you work the “Website Success Cycle”, the better your bottom line!